


Pigeons, Non-Euclidean Geometry, and an Unhealthy Reliance on the Lion King for a Belief System

by OxfordOctopus



Series: OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [3]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Annette Hebert Lives, Annette and Danny broke up, Child Neglect, Divorce, Gen, Middle School, Sophia quotes the Lion King, Taylor is a disaster gay, They're all friends, adults being morons, an uncomfortable fascination with pigeons, nobody is handling this well, she's seen it once and barely remembers it but it wont stop her or the internet, tiny lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 04:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20002327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordOctopus/pseuds/OxfordOctopus
Summary: What would happen if Taylor, the trio, and a handful of other characters were all Missy's age during the time when canon worm took place?Well. They'd be friends, obviously.





	1. Missy Troubles

Missy had problems.

Of course she did, really, she was _the_ Missy Biron, Vista, superhero extraordinaire. It was part of the package deal that she had problems, ‘Vista, Problem Magnet’ might as well have been written on the backs of those god awful trading cards she had accidentally agreed to.

The problem she was talking about, though, wasn’t related to her being the _best_ Ward. Well, _fine_ , there was a level of minimal overlap between the two groups, but it wasn’t enough to call this a _Vista_ problem over a _Missy_ problem. No, you see, in the opinion of the powers that be and a healthy application of what more often felt like idle negligence rather than malice, Vista didn’t have friends, but _Missy_ did. Vista wasn’t allowed friends, she wasn’t allowed to show favoritism, she wasn’t allowed to be seen as a hero or a child but instead only as some awful combination of the two. So Missy had friends - friends that she had fought hand over fist to keep, even if it had been an unflattering mark on her ‘disciplinary history’ - and those friends were now giving her more problems to deal with.

Yet her friends needed her to be _Vista_ more than they needed her to be _Missy_. Or at least they might if they didn't learn to hide themselves better.

Now, not to brag - and she would _certainly_ never do that - but Missy had been around the block when it came to triggers and the resulting shitfit of adults and identification. Her trigger had never been personally all that great and the first use of her power had almost immediately gotten the attention of the Protectorate, which was to be expected when you pinch the space between your home and the PRT HQ’s roof. Most of the time, when you were - _not that she’d ever admit it_ \- as ‘young’ as she was, people trended towards being picked up by the PRT because they’d do something stupid and impulsive with their powers. She could, at the very least, agree to that much; even if she absolutely trounced the average maturity level most kids in her grade certainly didn’t.

So when she finally figured out that not one but two of her friends _also_ had powers and yet she had heard of neither of them and _nobody else seemed to notice?_ Well… Concerning was the word of the day.

Of course, ‘friends’ was... Well, an argued term. One of them certainly was, but the other?

“Shortstack.” The words were both a statement and a question, Missy obliging her ‘friend’ by glancing at her. Sophia, a year older in part due to family troubles - apparently - was staring right at her, not bothering to pay attention to the casserole she was mutilating beneath the repeated stabs of a spoon. “What do we have next?”

Sophia had never really gotten along with her, even if she was only a year older, but they had inevitably settled into a mutual sort of needle-like ‘friendship’. Sure, Sophia had all the grace of a four wheeler made out of a thorn bush, but at very least she had the potential to flower into something actually pleasant to interact with. “Math.”

Sophia grunted in response, glancing off to the left. “Hey, Hebert.”

Taylor Hebert was, by all accounts, a good person. A great person, even. She had befriended Missy before she really even recognized that it was happening, and by the time half a year had gone by she had come to be the closest thing she had to a ‘best’ friend. There was still a little distance there, as she couldn’t usually do the sleepovers that might cement the friendship into something that would probably last the test of time, what with being a Ward and all, but the gradual build up into something close knit had been more than adequate and hopefully would remain that way.

Taylor was, in addition, completely incapable of talking to girls. Well, most girls. Missy wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with the fact that Taylor talked to her and one flighty-looking redhead as easily as she did guys, but when it came to other girls in her grade like Sophia? Well…

Taylor had frozen up, one hand still clutching the a spoonful of casserole. She got a sort of glassy-eyed - and that _wasn’t_ a joke about the fact that Taylor had to wear glasses, honest! - look to her, her usual mess of black tangles doing quite a bit to conceal the blotchy red color that all but completely consumed her face. Missy still noticed, though, and probably half the school did too.

“You got the homework?” A nod from Taylor. Sophia looked smug. “Lemme copy?”

“Can’t you do your own? You got caught last time.” Taylor was caught in a half-nod when Missy interrupted and went stock-still. Sophia spared her a glance, eyes narrowing; she could already feel the oncoming verbal match that she _always_ won. _Always_.

“I laugh in the face of danger.” Sophia said with the sort of confidence they both knew she was mostly bluffing through.

Missy couldn’t take it. “Look.” Sophia did. “Just because you watched the Lion King _once_ doesn’t mean you’re actually a lion.”

Apparently that did it well enough, considering that Sophia tepidly looked back towards her casserole, face split between anger and embarrassment. Taylor, having apparently recovered, nudged the worksheet they’d taken home over to Sophia, who then quickly started copying down the answers. When she was done, the hellion turned a wide, proud smile in Missy’s direction. “See?” Missy didn’t. “Predator—” Sophia motioned at herself, before moving the gesture to Taylor “—and prey.”

She couldn’t find it in herself to justify that with a response.

“If you will not fight, then you will die as well.”

“Oh, shut _up_ Sophia!”

She didn’t.

\- ※ -

“You look stressed, Missy.” Dean, always gallant, took a seat across from her, his face schooled into a placating expression. “Is everything going okay?”

_No. I know a girl who can turn intangible and bases her worldview around the Lion King and another one who can control birds - I think, anyway - but is too infatuated to do anything about it._ “Yep! Everything’s fine.”

Dean wasn’t buying it. She couldn’t blame him.

“Well. How about you join me and Victoria on our shopping trip?” _No_. Dean’s face - handsome though it was - crinkled with effort to restrain something, Missy opted to not think about what that something was. “I think you and her could bond over things, and I think she’ll bring Amy along?”

An errant thought came to her on that. _I wonder._

“Can I bring a friend?” Dean had to work on hiding his shock, it really wasn’t that surprising that she had friends. Honest.

He nodded enthusiastically, however. “I think that’d be great, what’s their name? Do you have their phone number?”

“Taylor.” Dean’s expression cramped _visibly_ at her words. Apparently he’d caught on, maybe her emotions had given the game away?

“The bird girl? From the uh, time we went to your school with the Dallons?” The incident had involved one flustered Victoria, a signed stuffed - not literally, but a plushy - pigeon and Taylor mumbling incoherently in front of a crowd. Nobody could manage to tease her about it afterwards, though, she _had_ gotten Glory Girl’s autograph. Dennis had apparently got the incident on tape but was withholding it ‘until future events make it necessary’, whatever that meant.

“Yup.” Missy even managed to pop the P on that like every cool rebel did. Honest. 

“I– uh. I can’t see that being too big of a problem. Sure.”


	2. Taylor Troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taylor frets over girls, birds, and birds in that nebulously "that's a girl" way.

Taylor had problems, mostly with girls, though she also had problems with Math and English, like most people do. Today’s problem, however, was General Pudge. Among her amassing army of loyal, befeathered followers, General Pudge was an old soul. A veteran, if you would, her penultimate pal among pals, her rock, her anchor. Her pet that had chewed through three bags of Bits ‘n’ Bites and only cooed smugly at her when she found him.

See, General Pudge wasn’t insubordinate, just _very_ lazy. He was her most powerful soldier, literally in this case – he responded the best to the itch in her bones that her dad had said was normal, or at least as normal as ‘people like us can be’, whatever that meant. Pudge was _receptive_ in that sort of way that felt a little bit _too_ good, like stretching her legs after years of sitting in a chair, though he hadn’t really started out that way. He had just had the bad luck of being hit by a car and by the time she had healed him she had found his body both far easier to nudge in certain directions and with certain goals in mind.

Taylor didn’t much like her visitation days, in all honesty. It - the divorce - might’ve helped calm down her home life but nothing good was coming out of it, especially not with the not-moms dad occasionally had over. Real-mom, awkwardly, had also started probing at the topic of dating someone else. The fact that she had taken so long and had been so hesitant about the topic - something about ‘it might not be like your dad’ - had worried her, but at least step parents tended to come and go frequently enough, if how her dad had been managing was any indication.

But visit she had, and her dad had all but immediately left to take care of something more important than her. She had unthinkingly sent General Pudge over, worried more about losing control of him - he was never the quickest flyer - and it only occurred to her half way through the drive over that she had forgotten to take back the part of her power that made her main bird bulkier. This had meant General Pudge managed to get inside - god knows how, hopefully not by breaking anything, he was stealthy like that - and then had proceeded to pillage her snack box and leave the remains out to gloat about.

General Pudge was a petty bird, she knew. Any reprisal for this act of thievery would net her a week of annoyed cooing and a considerable uptick in getting her hair nested in. She could, admittedly, exert full control over him for it, push his little pea mind into a cramped, dark corner and puppet him entirely, but she found the idea kinda gross and invasive. It was also mean, and really, it wasn’t General Pudge’s fault he had a thing for salty wheat produce. She was the same way!

It took a while to clean up the plastic scraps and crumbs - at least she could eat without getting it everywhere, she had _lips_ \- but it wasn’t a difficult task. What _was_ really difficult was focusing on the bit of her brain that cycled through the various troubles and concerns of General Pudge, which weren’t many - she had given him a tune up a few days ago - but she still needed to exert some effort. De-age, clean out his liver, make him puke up the plastic he had swallowed - that was less easy to clean - find out that he’d also managed to bump his wing and heal the bruise before it could appear, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Still, it would be no good if the general of her most impressive air force was laid under with something like a sprained wing, so she took her burdens - as plenty as they may be - with the grace that her father had said was necessary when doing things like these. That and the fixing process generally put General Pudge to sleep before he could get antsy and want to fly. It’d also cut down on the amount of time he’d be annoyed at her for taking involuntary control over his biology and making sure it was functional, but that was more of a ‘him’ issue, honestly.

Only after ensuring that General Pudge was sleeping off his tune-up and had been put to bed did Taylor finally let herself leave the attic and make her way down to the main floor, or more specifically, the one couch that didn’t feel like it was made out of bramble and spinal injuries. It was the one piece of furniture that her dad had managed to get out of the divorce, and at the time she had been upset about it, but in hindsight it was obvious that he knew practically nothing about things that were comfortable. It was more of a boon than a bust that he’d managed to get the comfier sofa; god only knows how she’d survive without it.

\- ※ -

“Brat, we’re here.” The voice was loud, brawny, and hoarse. _Rache._

She had been in the middle of pilfering her dad’s stash of what was supposed to be choco-fudge but tasted more like choco-choco-with-more-choco ice cream that they had entered. She had heard the lock _chunk_ and _clunk_ away, hoping that maybe dad might’ve wanted to be with her more than he wanted to do something else, but _nope_. Rache, though one of her favorite people, up there with people like Missy and Sophia, still somewhat disappointed her by not being her dad, as mean as that might be.

She kept the errant thought mostly to herself.

Brian had come too, though he was awfully quiet for the brother of someone like Aisha. She knew that Aisha _could_ be quiet, and very often was, but that quietness wasn’t for quiet’s sake, it was to make the noise that accompanied it just that much harder to ignore.

Brian was, for all intents and purposes, what she’d seen on television painting actual father figures like; suave, smells like tobacco and grass, owns a loft, can’t cook to save his life, those sorts of things. Her dad only happened to share the last bit.

“Why’re y’here?” Having a full mouth made talking difficult. She’d learned that was part of the appeal.

“Note.” Rache, always the charmer, jabbed her thumb at a scrap of what Taylor imagined was probably some important tax return, scribbled hastily over with blue pen. “Missy over?”

Taylor shook her head. “I think dad’s out with her mom.”

Brian winced, Rache nodded sagely.

“Or something? Could always ask, Missy’s just across the street.” True enough, but it wasn’t like she expected them to ask her to do it – not that she wanted to anyway.

Rache gave an unbothered shrug. “Angelica?”

“Pudge’s upstairs, you’ll have to keep her down here. Where’s the rest?” Taylor tried to put away another scoop of ice cream, but Brian’s firm grip on the container didn’t let her. He gave her that ‘let it go’ sort of look until, inevitably, she did. Stupid older people, being stronger. Pudge could beat them up.

Rache turned and stalked out to go and get her dog.

“How long did dad book you?” Maybe it was her tone, but Taylor noticed the way Brian’s face cramped up. He was honest, even if he rarely wanted to be. “...That bad?”

“Entire weekend.” His words cut. The urge to reclaim her ice cream came back, but she smothered it. She couldn’t be upset, not here.

The front door shut and the telltale clickity-clack of Angelica’s paws on hardwood helped distract her some, even if only long enough for Brian to put the ice cream back into the freezer and toss her spoon into the sink, the sound of metal-on-unwashed glass jarring enough to make her flinch. Brian leveled an apologetic smile at her; she forgave him.

The kitchen tap turned on with a pulse, drowning out the excited scrambling of Angelica and Rache’s heavy footsteps. “You know,” Brian started carefully, having bent down to collect some yellow rubber gloves, “Aisha recommended it, but I think we could do a sleepover or something if you’d want to call over your friends?”

“Isn’t your rule to never follow along with what she says?” Taylor still considered it, pursing her lips. The idea _was_ appealing, and it would beat sitting around watching television and feeling sorry for herself.

The clatter of dishes brought her back, Brian shifting the top layer of ketchup-crusted plates to get access to several bowls and mugs. “Yeah, but I’m willing to take the gamble.”

If she had to guess, Missy would probably be up for it, especially if her dad was out with her mom, seeing as Mr. Biron was kind of an ass on the best of days. “I’ll go ask Missy?”

Brian made what Taylor translated as a ‘go ahead’ gesture, even if he was up to his elbows in dirty dishes. “Aisha might also invite someone, but I’ll veto it if she tries to call Lisa or Madison.”

Taylor grimaced involuntarily, cringing away at the last name. Even Lisa’s unique brand of 'I-know-too-much-and-I-enjoy-that-you-don't-like-that' was better than the awkward mess that was her relationship with _Madison_ , especially after last week. “How do you even _know_ about that?”

Brian smiled in a startling imitation of Aisha’s own. Or was it the other way around? Both were _equally_ as terrifying. “Well, you hear a lot on the grape vine.”

She could already feel the wash of heat winding its way out from her cheeks and towards her ears. Just the _mention_ of that incident was embarrassing and _god_ knows she'll probably have to live with being 'the messy hug lady' for the rest of her life. “It’s not my fault! How on _earth_ should I have known that the doorway was going to be occupied? _I needed to wash my hands!_ ”

Even without his arms being available, Brian managed to make what amounted to a gesture of surrender. “Alright, alright!” He was trying really hard not to laugh, she could tell. "Go and find Missy and see if she wants to stay over, I'll finish up the dishes."

Taylor took the opening and fled.


End file.
